Teaching multiplication tables

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RetroBok

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I want to teach Retro jnr his times tables, and was wondering if anyone here knew of an effective way of doing it. He's 7 and has the attention span of a ... well a 7 year old :D

I don't want him to learn parrot fashion like when I was at school I want him to work it out, so he understands why the answers are what they are. He's doing it at school but I want to "supplement" his maths skills a bit since I think maths is a very important skill to have and it's probably the only subject I'll be ultra pushy with.

The little kink in my plan is I don't see him everyday (he lives with my first Mrs) quite a distance a way.

I'm either going to need to do it via video (Skype) or via mail. For the mail I've thought of a few ideas, but I know there's a few teachers out there that would probably know a better way than I am thinking of.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
(Sorry to totally not answer your question). Teach him Chess rather. Play online over MSN or similar.
 
From my missus (a teacher) - use the same method they are using at his school as you do not want to confuse him at foundation phase.
 
The human mind cannot compute nine groups of nine.

The only way to learn multiplication tables is parrot fashion. 9x9=81. That's it.
 
There are some tricks though, the answer adding the tens + units of any multpiple of 9 will be .... 9, 5's are piss easy.




That's why ... think of any number between 1 and 10......
take that number and multiply it by 9


Add your answer's tens and unit numbers together....



Subtract 5




convert your answer to a letter of the alphabet ..A = 1, B = 2, C=3, etc



Think of a country name starting with your letter





Take the 2nd letter of that country and think of any mammal starting with that letter




The colour of the animal you chose is Grey




Elephant





In Denmark
 
The human mind in its short memory can only compute numbers up to 7 in one instant. Everything else is based upon long term memory, which relies on repitition.

Contrary to common belief, short term memory for humans is only a couple of seconds. Anything longer than that falls in the realm of long term memory.
 
Drake2007 said:
Would that translate to thinking 7 moves ahead in chess?
Click to expand...

No, because in chess you take more than aa couple of seconds to work out your move. The rest relies on your long term memory.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Or maybe 7 seconds of computed chess and after that from practice and study.
 
I never learnt the multiplication tables parrot fashion. You figure out fairly quickly how to count in multiples of a number, and come to an answer that way.
The only trick I know of is for 9. Fairly easy for kids to catch onto as they use their fingers to figureit out first, then can switch to doing it mentally. Using all 10 fingers: 4x9: put down the 4th finger; 3 before, 6 after, answer = 36. 6x9: lower the 6th finger; 5 before, 4 after, answer = 54.
 
Dials of a clock makes a nice tables learner converting dials position to hours/days
 
moggie said:
From my missus (a teacher) - use the same method they are using at his school as you do not want to confuse him at foundation phase.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%. My ex-wife has just launched a full range of books based on the current SA curriculum and she focused on the foundation used by teachers to develop her system.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
Agree 100%. My ex-wife has just launched a full range of books based on the current SA curriculum and she focused on the foundation used by teachers to develop her system.
Click to expand...

Mmmm, tell us more, grades/cost/contact......etc.
 
Thanks for your answers guys, he's only on his 2 times tables lol, I want him to understand how to work out what 4 x2 is on paper so he gets the "logic" behind it.
 
4 x 2 is 4 + 4 twice ( being the 2)

4 x 3 is 4 + 4 + 4 ( three times )

Maybe that what he's missing?
 
By rote is the best way for youngsters. It will help him later because you don't have to think about it, since it uses memory only.
 
kids like bicycles, they "get it"...they like stories...make it visual
so, you have 4 bicycles, and one of the bicycles has a puncture...how many good wheels are there....

all of that **** is multiplicaiton, but it makes it fun.

you have 3 drawers in your cupboard, with 5 underpants in each drawer...how many underpants do you have? (turn this one into a joke, tell him 16, because h is wearing one pair already) and so on and so on...fun puzzles.

no kidding, i taught my kid via this method when he was 4, to the point that we wouldnt do bedtime stories at night, we would just lie there and give each other ridiculous number puzzles, laughing our heads off.

johnny needs to poo badly, so he poo's three times a day, and everytime he uses 2 toilet rolls because his poo is so BIIIIIIGGGGGG !!!(laugh..giggle, whatever)...how many rolls does he use in a week?

mary buys 3 ice-creams but the icecream man rips her off...each ice-cream was 10p, she bought 3, and paid with a 50p coin ...but he only gave her 10p change. if mary can only klap him twice a day, how many days must she klap him to get her 10p worth back if every klap is 1p.

all of these things teach them to think, assign variables, use arrays etc. they just dont realise it because it is so much fun.
 
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